Critics fear provoking hostile aliens by relaying messages to our nearby exoplanets, but there is no need to worry, says METI President Douglas Wakoh.
When a 32-meter radio station north of the Arctic Circle in Norway began a series of broadcasts last month, it marked the first attempt to signal our existence to aliens on Earth's known exoplanet. The target was GJ 273b, the closest known potentially habitable planet. It orbits the star Luiten, a red dwarf star, 12.4 light years from Earth. GJ 273b is one of dozens of planets that may contain life, found in the past two decades thanks to advances in astronomy.
After the broadcast was announced last week, criticism followed. Some scientists warn against sending such deliberate signals to other stars for fear of provoking an alien invasion. But they are missing one critical point. Any aliens on GJ 273b capable of interstellar travel are advanced enough to already be aware of our existence.
More than half a century has passed since SETI launched the world's first search for extraterrestrial intelligence by listening to their signals, but no answer has been received. The reason for this may be, according to scientists, the so-called theory of the zoo.
According to the zoo's hypothesis, advanced civilizations could be far more widespread than we imagine, possibly populating planets around nearby stars. But they watch us, as the hypothesis suggests, just as we watch animals in a zoo.
Martynyuk